All good things must come to an end, and it appears that karma be damned, my hot streak is over. Well, I hope it's not over, but damn, I sure hit a big ol' speed bump last night.
Still basking in the afterglow of my huge win this past weekend, plus being on the Mother Of All Heaters anyways (not counting the jackpot money, I was still up almost a thousand bucks in the past ten days, just from playing 4/8), I decided to take the night off. I called the poker room yesterday and asked them if any of the other Extra Board dealers might want my Monday night shift--I'd be willing to give it up and let somebody else pick up an extra one. It took them all of about two minutes to find somebody who wanted it, so just that quickly, I didn't have to work last night.
I hung around the house, with the Monday Night Football game on the big TV and the World Series on the old one, thinking about ordering a pizza. That never happened--the grilled cheese and chicken soup pretty much held me over. But around halftime of the football game, I was getting a bit antsy.
Of course I headed back down to the poker room. On one hand, I wanted to let all the other players see that I'm willing to put some of my winnings back in the game, and secondly, I was still running white-hot, feeling ten feet tall and bulletproof.
I should've known on the first hand that my luck had changed for the worse. I was under the gun and got pocket Kings.
Woot--off to the races!
I raised, and got three callers. Of course an Ace came out on the flop. Being in early position, I checked, certain that at least one person had stayed in with Ace-rag. The player immediately after me fired out, and the other two players called. I folded my worthless cowboys, and watched in disbelief as on the showdown, all three players had Ace-rag and all three had caught their initial one-outer on the flop.
Wow. It was all downhill from there...
Nothing held up all night. I got rivered on two quick pots, and before I knew it, I was down fifty bucks. I never made it back above par for the rest of the night, either. I had ELEVEN pocket pairs that were tens or higher, and they got cracked all eleven times!
My favorite dealer, the one who gave me the quad fours on Saturday, hit me with pocket Queens on her first hand in the box. I raised and pushed the action all the way to the river on a raggedy board with no face cards, and the genius in the small blind who called a $5 raise cold with 7-4 offsuit went runner-runner for two pair. Ugly.
But that wasn't the worst of it. I got up to take a break for a few minutes after losing $150, and one of my buddies, who deals over at the MGM, slid over into my seat. I came back to the table about ten minutes later with another $60 buy-in and took the seat he vacated. I lost a few hands, again, and was down to about $28 left when I got pocket tens. I raised, my buddy in my old seat re-raised me, and everyone else dropped out. He said he had suited cards and was gonna offer me some protection. I re-raised, and we capped it at $14. I got trips on the flop, and was pretty confident about doubling up.
I ended up getting all my money in the pot before the turn, and felt confident because I was only up against a straight draw (we both turned our cards up, tournament style). Of course, my opponent was cool with it--he knew he'd need a miracle to win. The whole table was shocked that he went runner-runner and made a ROYAL FLUSH! Yep, not only did I get my entire stack into the pot when my opponent made a royal flush, but that was my seat a few minutes before, and we still had the same number of players in the game! So not only did he crush me, he got a $250 bonus, too. And everyone at the table took the opportunity to remind us of our seat swap.
All I could do was laugh. That was one of the worst beats I've ever taken, but it was so typical of the night I was having.
I bought in for another forty bucks, stubbornly, and the same thing happened again. I got all my money in the pot when I turned a flush, but the board paired on the river, giving my opponent a four of a kind!
I think my reaction was something along the lines of, Come on, man, at least leave me a few bucks so I can get me some Taco Bell fourth meal on the way home!, which made everyone laugh.
It was amazing. Yep, got all my chips in twice, once against a Royal Flush, another time against Quads. And both hands happened within about a half hour of each other. $250 was my loss limit for the night, so after that hand I called it quits, finally realizing that the poker gods were beating me over the head all night, telling me to leave.
Normally, I would've been pissed off to no end, but I can't really complain. I've had a great run, regardless of jackpot winnings. And taking a good-natured beating probably did a lot more good for me in the long run. A lot of folks witnessed it, and I'm sure it'll pay dividends down the road.
Usually, after a beating like that at the poker tables, I find it hard to sleep. My brain is firing, I'm ticked off, I keep thinking 'what if..', and it just keeps me up all night. Not this time. I was laughing it up like I truly didn't care. And once I got home, I slept like a rock until almost 10:30 this morning.
When I crawled out of bed, I called my boss to make sure I had Saturday night off (no problem at all), and then I hit the kitchen with a vengeance. Having not eaten anything since lunch yesterday, I was good and hungry, so I made my home-made chicken fried steak, some hash browns, and eggs. And the pan gravy was damn good, too. I was quite proud of myself, because it turned out much better than I expected (still not quite Peppermill good, but it'll do in a pinch).
I'm not gonna do too much today, just the usual housework and whatnot. And after last night's beatdown, there's no way I'm giving up tonight's shift. Life is back to normal now, and before long I'm sure I'll be clamoring for more hours and scrounging for extra shifts.
Still, it's been a good week.
Mikey
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